# Inserting many records into a database

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/inserting-many-records-into-a-database/155128>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [December 8, 2008, 1:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/inserting-many-records-into-a-database/155128 "2008-12-08T13:16:37Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![farmerss](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/dbc845/32.png) [@farmerss](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/farmerss)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 1:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/inserting-many-records-into-a-database/155128/1 "2008-12-08T13:16:37Z")

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Hi,

I want to insert many records into a database. If I do them one-by-one,  
it takes a long time. Does Rails have a method to optimize this –  
creating a single SQL command for many records, maybe? The entries I  
want to enter are all children to a single parent. Creating an array  
children\_array of the child objects is fast; it’s when I do

children\_array.each do |child|  
children\<\<child  
end

that it takes a long time. (Here children is the name of the table that  
has child objects.)

Thanks!

- Farmer

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**Author:** ![farmerss](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/dbc845/32.png) [@farmerss](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/farmerss)\
**Post date:** [December 8, 2008, 3:17pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/inserting-many-records-into-a-database/155128/2 "2008-12-08T15:17:44Z")

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You might be able to use ar-extensions [  
[http://www.continuousthinking.com/tags/arext](http://www.continuousthinking.com/tags/arext)] [  
[GitHub - zdennis/ar-extensions: ActiveRecord::Extension (aka ar-extensions) is a plugin to extend and enhance the functionality of ActiveRecord](http://github.com/zdennis/ar-extensions/tree/master)] from my friend and  
colleague, Zach D…

Regards,  
Craig

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**Author:** ![farmerss](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/f/dbc845/32.png) [@farmerss](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/farmerss)\
**Post date:** [December 10, 2008, 2:12am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/inserting-many-records-into-a-database/155128/3 "2008-12-10T02:12:45Z")

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Thanks a lot! That looks really useful.